Why do you always have to be right Matt?
I agree that although FIRST is a great program and it teaches students a lot about engineering and creative thinking, and gives students a chance to apply their knowledge, it doesn't teach everything. High school should give students a well rounded education in math, science, reading/writing, and social sciences & history. At most you could squeeze the first 3 into the school, but even then you could only scratch the surface of each area with a program that revolves around FIRST. Math would mostly be about geometry and wouldn't cover pre-calc or calc; science would be about physics & materials and you'd miss biology & chemistry; english would only have technical writing and would skip creative writing & reading of classic literature. And even though I really dislike the social sciences & history you can't just leave them out (hey if I had to suffer through 'em so should everyone else).
Students should wait until college before they focus on one discipline. High school should be a time to explore what you like & don't like and what you're good at and bad at. On our team, we're happy when students tell us they're going to college for engineering, but we're also happy when they say they they hate engineering and are taking a different path. That's one of the major points of high school and FIRST.
Mike